Page 31 of Caruso
His intense gaze lingers a little too long, and I sense the heat spreading through my body as he undresses me with his eyes. He is the one who interests me most. It could be the madness we share, the love of power over another person’s life. Or is it because he is dangerously handsome with a wicked grin that would strip an angel of her virginity with mind games alone?
No woman could remain innocent around these men, and they match my energy perfectly. They believe they are controlling me. I am happy to let them. Safe in the knowledge that when this all ends, I will be the one in control—not them.
Two hours pass as fast as the miles the jet eats up, and we are soon on our final approach. I stare out of the window as the landscape changes, and the bundle of nerves inside me has tightened into a huge ball as I wonder what will be waiting for me—for us.
“Tell us about your stepfather, sugar.”
Giorgio leans forward, his eyes dark and cruel as he sharpens his appetite for pain.
“He is an ordinary predator.”
“In what way?”
He appears to like my description judging from the laughter that hovers on his lips.
“He works as a truck driver but spends most of the journey picking up hitchhikers and screwing them in his cab.”
I almost spit my description out for that man because he is the monster in my reality.
“When he came home, he used to toss fifty dollars on the table along with a bag of cocaine for my mom.”
There are no tears—that well dried up years ago – and I deliver my facts with zero emotion.
“He would haul her ass into the bedroom where he would use her body in a cruel way.”
“She may have liked it.” Giorgio adds with a shrug, and I hiss, “Not judging from the terrified screams and pleas to stop. I wouldn’t say she was enjoying that, would you, Mr. Caruso?”
I fix him with a sharp glare, and he grins, his interest flaring like the strike from a match.
“While he showered, she would drag herself from the room and make straight for the drugs. It became a habit watching her snort the white powder while crying for forgiveness.”
The men are silent as I deliver the damning history of my childhood, and I hiss, “I came home one day after school to find her still in bed. That wasn’t uncommon, but it was obvious she hadn’t surfaced for some time. The place was a mess, and he was due home, and if it wasn’ttidy when he returned, it earned her a beating. I tried to rouse her, but she was cold.”
I shiver. “So cold. Like ice.”
My hands tangle in my lap, and I blink away the tears as I whisper, “I didn’t have time to call the ambulance because he returned early. He took one look at her and yelled at me for allowing her to overdose. He told me I had killed my mom and would be thrown into jail. He would shop me in himself unless I promised not to breathe a word of anything that went on inside that house.”
Their cold eyes understand, but their mouths remain shut. There are no soft glances, no whispers of sympathy and no reassurances. These men are killers; their emotions shut down long ago, and I respect them for that. I am the same, and I sigh heavily.
“He cleaned up and made me help. All the time Mom was lying in bed and he yelled at her the entire time. Telling her what a loser she was, ugly and incompetent. He was glad she was dead and nobody would mourn her. He shouted that he would marry her daughter and make her life hell and that the sins of the mother would be paid back ten times over by her daughter when she became a woman. I listened to it all without reacting because I had lived with him long enough to know that would earn me a beating. When we finished, he called the cops, and the rest is a blur as they descended on the house. I was questioned. I told them I had found her when I came home from school around the same time as my stepfather. That we walked in together andfound her like that. He pretended to grieve, to play the doting stepfather, and the authorities decided that as the home was spotless and my attendance was good at school, he would become my legal guardian. I could say nothing because I was scared. He told me if I went into care I would be sent to a family who would beat me and worse. He terrified me every hour of my day and starred in my nightmares, so you must forgive me my weakness when it concerns him.”
I draw a breath and the silence is strangely comforting. It’s as if I’m alone and purging my mind of all the horrors that have lived there for far too long already.
As the plane touches down, I stare them all right in the eye and say fiercely, “Make the bastard pay, make it long, painful and what he deserves and in return I am yours for as long as you want me.”
Tommaso shakes his head. “That’s not enough.”
He leans forward. His dark eyes glittering above his fierce frown. The stubble that coats his jaw is rough, and his attitude cold as he hisses, “What makes you the prize, Taylor? You are asking a lot for little in return. We can have any woman we choose, so why would we want you?”
He is being deliberately cruel. I understand he is harboring something deep inside him—hell, aren’t we all, so I say nothing and merely shrug, raising my eyes to his defiantly. “Then name your price, Mr. Caruso. What would be enough to secure your services?”
Giorgio chuckles softly as Matteo leans back in his seat. “Tell her, Tommaso. What do you want from her?”
Tommaso leans closer and surprises me by reachingout and grasping my cheeks in his fingers, the pain almost excruciating as he stares into my eyes with the expression of Lucifer himself.
“I want her total surrender.”
“You would be bored within twenty-four hours.”
